We will be getting two versions of a combined Data/Relic Analyzer – called Ligature and Zeugma. You can check the stats in the patch notes, but Jonnypew did a review of them here:

There will be no more Dust514 items on the market. That coincides with there being no more Dust514. I had a momentary thought that I would go collect some of the stuff, just for interest, but then I realised I had no interest in it at all.

The Force Auxiliary skills and the ISK paid for injected Force Auxiliary skills will be repaid (finally). That will give me a couple Billion ISK extra and a few days worth of SP.

They are introducing the right click – pan feature in the new camera. That was something I was complaining about just recently. I will be glad to see it back.

Oh – and the old camera is being disabled.

I’ve been using the new camera for a while now. I still prefer the old – but was living ok with the new. That is – until some of their recent tweaking. The zoom is odd again, the camera is resetting strangely, and it is irritating me at times. It still feels like a downgrade.

I spent a long weekend being a tourist in Sydney with my wife – celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary.

This is us back on our wedding day.

I had more hair but less of me back then.

There was a lot about our wedding that set the foundation and direction of our marriage.

Aside small but appreciated contributions from our parents, we saved and paid for the wedding ourselves. We organised and agreed to everything together. We carefully picked just 60 odd guests we were really happy to have attend. We ignored trends and went for a more timeless look. Uncommonly amongst our friends we had a morning wedding with a lunch time reception, with a pianist and then string quartet playing in the background. While this was our preference, it also allowed us to use a beautiful old Reception Centre that might otherwise been out of our budget.

Despite spending less than half that of many of our friends, I believe we had one of the nicest weddings, and seemed to end up being one of the happiest with our day. We still look back at it very fondly – it was a fantastic start to our now 20 years of married life.

I remember at the time a couple family members quietly alluded to us being somewhat selfish by not following more of their suggestions. I guess the admirable trait of independence could look like that.

My Empire Alt has sat 17,000 SP off Advanced Spaceship Command V for some time now. Once done she can train ORE Freighter. I had not bothered swapping skill training to that character to finish this off, but figured once I heard about Daily Opportunities I would instead use those to get her across the line.

Logging in today I realised she didn’t have a single ship suitable for killing NPCs, and not many skill points allocated in offensive areas. After a bit of playing around in EFT I ended up with a very basic Coercer fit (Amarr Destroyer) which I purchased and put together in Amarr.

A quick visit to a space anomaly (because it can take much longer to find Rats in Hi-Sec Belts) and she had 10,000 SP.

Day one success for CCP – I spent an hour playing EVE that I would not have otherwise done. Subsequent days should only take me a few minutes to log in and collect the 10K SP, but that is better than not logging in at all.

JonnyPew broached a question in a recent YouTube Video on how do you define what playing Solo is. (The video has since been removed.)

He remarked that he tried to be objective, but his strong opinion was evident. He came down on the side that playing EVE Solo was when one person used only one Character to achieve their goals.

I – with my two accounts and 4 Characters, would not be playing solo.

Funny enough, in my recent malaise over EVE I’ve considered dropping down to one account and one character. I went through the impact – such as Capitals probably never being an option again, how I’d be stuck in Trading hubs if I was selling lots of stuff off, if I focused on manufacturing or PI again how it would limit my game play options, how I would have to play blind in Null Sec and so on. I would be playing a more inconvenient and restricted game of EVE. I would likely be playing a less enjoyable game.

JonnyPew suggested the community would decide on the definition of Solo through the praise they give. If they praise a single player using multiple accounts for their solo work, then that will have to be the definition of solo. If they instead criticised such players, then his definition would be right.

I’m not sure that works given the community rarely agrees on anything.

It is an interesting question. I defend how I play EVE in this blog, and I reflect on changes and updates to the game and how they relate to my style of play. At the same time, I don’t personally care if I am praised or condemned. I view my success in EVE by if I am having fun or not. I think I will stick to calling myself a Hermit / solo player, and JonnyPew can take the Hardcore solo player mantle.

JonnyPew suggests everyone should take breaks from EVE if you want to survive in it long term.

I think that requirement comes more down to your personality than something EVE specific. I’ve never really taken a break from EVE – I do have times like now where real life gets so busy I can’t log in as often, but I don’t really put it aside.

Some really resonated with the way I have played EVE – “a series of self-appointed, self-motivated projects”, and “little windows of time in which to advance them, and the additional thrill provided by the possibility that someone will come along and interrupt me”.

It is not a complete picture – but there are many destroyed in that 15-minute unfitted vulnerability window after their long anchoring finishes, and lots of them being destroyed in Wormhole space. There was an interesting article here about the experiment and fall of a Citadel in Perimeter that is worth a read.

I still feel the success of Citadels in High-Sec will come down to so many of them being anchored that the carnivores simply tire of killing them unless they have reason. The protection gained from being in a very large herd. If the novelty of killing them doesn’t wear off, the carnivores might find themselves with sparse hunting grounds and CCP might need to look at the balance and mechanics. It is going to take a while to see.

I been eyeing off a Tornado Battle Cruiser that I have stored away. It is set up to Suicide Gank – mostly if someone annoys me enough. It is a nice idea, but I am just not sure if push comes to shove I will ever use it. I should sell it as well – I’m just not finding that conclusion as easy to come to as I would have expected.

I grabbed 20 of those Upwell pod skins cheap. I’ll leave them stored away for a few years to see if they increase noticeably in value or not.

While flying around collecting them I took to leaving the structure browser open. I figured if I passed through a system with a Citadel I would do a flyby / dock up / check it out. It took quite a lot of zigzagging across Domain before I happened across one.

There are currently 22 of them reported in the region – some are in familiar systems such as one in Niarja. I’m not sure if that is considered a lot of them or not. Most however are in systems I don’t particularly recognise, so I expect they are a bit out of the way. I also originally saw a couple in Low Sec, but they are no longer reported.

It is odd seeing the tethering connection when you approach a Citadel – and I wondered why it was also repairing me as there was nothing on the ship to repair. I assume it was transferring cap. The effect icon disappeared shortly afterwards.

After docking, I found the interior looked a lot like the Minmatar station I had just come from. That’s a little disappointing. I would have much preferred something more unique, given how different Citadels look from the outside.

The option to view outside the structure was cool enough – particularly as the menu options remained and allowed you to then click undock. They should do that for normal stations, but I guess it is one more carrot to try and get people to use Citadels instead of normal stations.

I’m also not a big fan of all the lights around the Citadel.

Anyway. It was an interesting 5-minute distraction from my task for the day.

I was writing a long post about my experiences in EVE, in other games, and with social media generally over the last 25 years. I just couldn’t get it to all flow nicely. My conclusion was that I am not sure EVE is especially worse than other competitive games where players directly interact, and that the problem of people not respecting others is a much wider social issue. It would have been a very convincing post, my best ever. You will just have to take my word for it.

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